Betty Rollin

JOURNALIST

In 1967 on assignment for Look magazine, Betty Rollin wrote an unforgettable cover story "Valley of the Dolls - The Movie Dames That Play The Dolls." The story began, "Valley of the Dolls, that candy box of vulgarity with something for everyone has, at last, reached its big-money mecca. Jacqueline Susann’s super-selling book is now, what else? A motion picture, shot in, where else? Hollywood, the place that understands it best.

The story got even dishier after that. Not only did I never forget it, it also became a touchstone for the tone, stance and attitude of Movieline magazine, for which I wrote for many years. 

Betty Rollin's achievements are impressive. Prior to that Look story, the native New Yorker served as an associate feature editor and staff writer for Vogue. Later, she served until 1971 as a Look senior editor .

She launched her television career as a correspondent for NBC news, reporting human interest stories for Today and NBC Nightly News. Her work included a series on the American Indians of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, which won both the Alfred I. duPont and Emmy Award.

After serving as a contributing correspondent for ABC News Nightlne from 1982-84, she wrote “Last Wish” detailing the suicide of her terminally ill mother. The book served as the basis of a 1992 ABC TV movie in 1992 starring Patty Duke and Maureen Stapleton. She wrote five other books, including “First, You Cry,” her 1976 critically acclaimed personal account of her battle with breast cancer and subsequent mastectomy. Mary Tyler Moore portrayed Rollin in a television movie version. 

She has been a contributing writer for several national publications, among them The New York Times and, as a contributing correspondent for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly,  she has been honored with the prestigious Gracie Allen Award, the CINE Golden Eagle, the New York Festival Award, and the Wilbur Award for “Impossible Choices.”

She and her mathematician husband ofDr. Harold M. Edwards, a mathematician, in Manhattan. Here is an excerpt from a conversation we had on January 21, 2020. Because of publishing schedule constraints, here's what didn't make it into the book. 

Was Valley of the Dolls a movie you asked to write about?

It certainly wasn’t the sort of movie I would have seen for pleasure. I’m just not that familiar with these people at all.

Do you mean the kinds of characters in Jacqueline Susann's novel or the people who were involved in the movie version?

Both.

What do you most remember about how you and your social circle at the time viewed Susann's novel?

I was a very young woman writing major stories for a major magazine while a lot of my girlfriends were secretaries and researchers. I was considered very lucky to be writing for money, although I shudder to think what they paid me but it never occurred to me to ask for more salary to write these major cover stories.  had a wonderful situation at Look. They just sent me off to do whatever I wanted to do. I’d barely become a writer and I realized how wonderful it was but not quite as much as I do now in retrospect.

The book Valley of the Dolls certainly had a buzz. Look magazine was big stuff at the time – this was long before movie star interviews were common on television and so the actors back then had to bother with reporters on the set. So, the fact that Look was putting the movie on the cover meant that it was in some way important culturally. That equaled: Important.

Journalism was such a man's world, especially at that time. Why do you think you got chosen for the gig?

I think they chose to send me out to California because I wasn’t a particularly respectful, reverent sort of person. I’m just mind-reading here but I was a very young, newish writer on the Look staff. It kind of surprised me that they sent me out to Los Angeles for this big story but I think they were hoping for a kind of irreverence.

They got it.

I guess they certainly got it. I was a kind of snooty young New York woman.

I wouldn’t say that I was revolted by the book or the movie. I was thinking it was junk but I recognized that it was somehow important in the culture. I didn’t feel that I had to be at all respectful.

I somewhat regret the story now because I think I was meaner than I needed to be to those actresses. They were just doing their jobs.

What was the culture like for journalists at that time?

Look put me up at the Beverly Hills Hotel whenever I was in California. Press agents sent presents all the time. It was big and important for them to have their movies in Look and Life magazines. Doing a cover story, they really appreciated it.

Nowadays, I would never have the kind of access that 20th Century Fox gave me on Valley of the Dolls.  I had complete access to anyone I wanted whenever I wanted. They were very pleased that this story was happening. There were no restrictions. Normally, it would have been a few days hanging around on the set and sometimes off the set. It was completely open. You heard a lot of things you wouldn’t have heard if you were doing an interview in a TV studio with a full crew, lights, etc.

You really saw how they were. On top of that, I brought my 'snooty New Yorker person' to it. Today, I’m not exactly sorry but my mindset is certainly in a different person today.

Let's talk about the actresses you skewered -- or allowed them to skewer themselves and each other -- Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke and Sharon Tate.

They were professionals. They were doing their job. They were all pros. I expected and respected that. 

Their volume was turned up very high, for certain, when I was around. They were very ‘on.’ Except for Barbara Parkins, who didn’t even seem to have an ‘on’ button. She had a very flat personality. Remarkably flat. Like nobody was home. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a person before or since who was just not there in some central way. It was quite amazing. She certainly had a very pretty face and I’m sure she seemed to be a good professional actress but when you talked to her, there was just this remarkable flatness. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite so flattened-out as Barbara Parkins.

With other journalists, Barbara Parkins was quoted as saying that she hoped for a career that would see her compared to major beauties and megastars on the order of Garbo, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor.

I sort of remember her talking like that. But you’d think that the sort of person who’d say things like that would have a face that would light up in front of the camera. Her face didn’t light up. She didn’t light up. She was remarkably flat. Something was just odd. I’ve certainly met people who were flat but she took the prize.

What were your impressions of Sharon Tate?

Sharon Tate was very much a woman of her time. It seemed clear to me that what Sharon Tate had on her mind was, for the most part, was her beauty, how alluring she was, her face. The total attention that beautiful women in that movie gave to their faces, their beauty, their bodies was remarkable but none seemed as extreme to me as Sharon Tate. Her whole being had so much to do with how she looked, how she felt she looked and her total attention that – all that mattered – was on how she looked. Period.  To look back at that from the standpoint of today is really stunning.The way I saw her and the way those women were had so much to do with those times. Today, those women would have felt obliged to be different or maybe, at least, they would have just been pretending to be different.

At the time, I was taken aback by it but today, t isn’t as if that’s over. It’s supposed to be over but it’s not.But these women were not trying in any way to hide their complete self-involvement with their appearance.

How did you see Patty Duke?

Patty Duke wasn’t selling ‘appearance’ but she was selling a whole other thing. In a way, she was the most modern of the three. She was in business. She had something the others didn’t have – a sense of humor which implies a critical sense and some intelligence. She wasn’t a beauty like the others. With beauty,  intelligence, irony, wit aren’t necessarily expected of you.Patty was there for other reasons. She was different. Although, I must say I was still quite mean to her. Reading the story again when you sent me the copy, I was shocked, thinking, I really didn’t have to be that mean to her. 

I appreciated that Patty was in business. I was in business. I was trying to write well and be funny.

Reading the story, I don't get the sense that you were necessarily out to get them. 

I didn’t need them to be the way they were to get a good story – although the way they were made for a better story. I wasn’t making them sound anything but the way they were sounding.

I remember feeling kind of shocked by those girls. Sharon’s utter absorption with her physical self was something I had never seen in my entire life. It was stunning. There are probably just like that today. I just don’t run across them.

Were you on the scene when Judy Garland was involved in the movie? 

I was on the set when Judy Garland was there, yes. I vividly remember her walking onto the set being kind of held up at the elbow by a young man. She looked very tiny, bent over and frail. So fragile. As she made that entrance, I thought, She’s going to act? I saw her try to do a scene and she was very weakened state. Even her voice was little and depleted. She at one point said, ‘Be careful with me. I’m just a little girl.’ It was all quite sad and I couldn’t possibly imagine how they were going to deal with all that. I saw them try to film a scene with Judy Garland and Barbara Parkins and they had to stop and start – a lot.

Your piece caused quite a firestorm at 20th Century Fox. It was as if the word went out: these women didn't necessarily like each other. Also: this movie could be terrible. Did you ever get any blowback from anyone involved with the movie?

Honestly? There was absolutely no blowback. I heard nothing. No matter how mean I might have been, the studio was probably delighted. Certainly the actresses weren’t going to say anything. The piece certainly wasn’t going to stop anyone who wanted to see Valley of the Dolls from seeing it. In fact, maybe the story helped make more people want to see it.

Over the years, did you ever have any run-ins with anyone connected with the movie?

It was a moment for me, let me tell you, when Patty Duke was chosen to play me in the movie about my mother's death, "Last Wish." I thought, "Oh, my. I wonder if she’s going to remember that nasty Look story I wrote about her all those years earlier." I was invited to join them when they were filming in Canada and it was on my mind, so I finally blurted out to her whether she remembered the story. She could not have been sweeter to me and my husband. She remembered the story, of course, but she forgave me. She was made of stronger stuff and was practical and tough. She was very sweet and forgiving. I was sort of grateful.